Deathcrash - Somersaults

Gentler than before, this outing from the sentimental slowcore folks feels as if it could collapse in a single moment, whilst, creeping into centre stage, Tiernan Banks’ mournful vocals act as a lynchpin around which the soaring soundscapes whirl and crash, letting darts of glorious light pierce the enveloping gloom.

After 2 records in as many years, the London quartet kept us waiting a little longer for album number 3 but, just like their music, this slow, carefully plotted pacing has made the resultant bountiful rewards so much sweeter and we’re proud to present it to you in this exclusive Dinked edition!

deathcrash’s third album, Somersaults, glimmers with an everyday euphoria.

The London-based slowcore/ post-rock quartet has always had an affinity for building worlds only to crush them. From their breakout EP, People thought my windows were stars (2021), through two critically acclaimed studio albums, Return (2022) and Less (2023), they have been both the architects and the destroyers, the creationists and the ones manning the flood barrier.

But, recorded between Black Box Studio in the Loire Valley and Haggerston’s Holy Mountain, Somersaults is almost joyful. Its ten tracks are more vocal heavy than any of the band’s catalogue – think Mark Linkous via The Kinks – but lyrically, Somersaults resists revelation. For all its abrasion, phrases appear half-swallowed, broken off at the edge of meaning, consumed by the smaller textures of living. “Thirty, no career, it fucking worries me / And doing the band doesn’t help,” Banks sings in ‘NYC’. But, “This life is the best life,” he finishes in ‘CMC’ on top of the ambient white noise of an office printer, thankful that the band is still there, “still making noise in the doorway.”

Their role as caretakers of Duster, Low and Codeine’s slowcore lineage is all across Somersaults – songs scud to a narcotic crawl, sound monolithic and inwards before spotlighting a crystalline nothing. Cathartic builds are muddied with tenderness, the bass a heavy grounding, the drums an exhausted heartbeat grasping for air. But more so than ever, even the silence feels collaborative – a gesture of communal trust – friends celebrating the room they’ve made for each other’s ghosts, and some of the biggest, brightest songs they’ve made to date.

For Fans Of: Duster / LOW / Codeine / Have A Nice Life / Explosions In The Sky